Why would anyone want to go to a bad team in a small market?
I know you probably are comparing MSP to the top 5 or so markets, which does make it small, but it is not a "small" market. When the Twins are classified as small market when MSP is twice as big as Milwaukee, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Baltimore, Tampa, Kansas City, Pittsburgh and several other MLB markets.
The Twin Cities market is in the top half of NBA Markets and MLB markets. It is not really "small", that would be Ok City or many others.
There are many much smaller and poorer NBA(if slightly larger in population market size in some cases)
San Antonio, OK City, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Orlando, Denver, Charlotte, Memphis, New Orleans, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Indianapolis, Portland, San Antonio
About the same: Phoenix (gotten larger, much poorer), Atlanta - big terrible market
Bigger: NYC, Chicago LA, Dallas, Houston, Philly, Miami, Boston, DC, Atlanta, Detroit, SF-Oak/